Your All the King's Men "found" poem is due 10/3

Pluck 25 of yer favorite phrases from between the pages of All the Kings Men to recreate a lovely piece of poetry. Your work should be at least 10 lines long. Add, subtract from, or rearrange the old words and lines to make a new work.

YOUR COLLEGE ESSAY - HAVE YOU REVISED YOUR'S YET???

1- Remember the old show me - don't tell me rule. Do not say - "My life was changed forever on that day." Instead, engage your reader in a narrative where he/she witnesses your life changing or the way you see things - evolving.

2- You can and should write your college essays in first person, but you do not want to turn into an egomaniac. Avoid having all of your sentences begin with "I". You want to vary the order and length of your sentences in general. Do not begin every sentence with an article, subject, verb combination. Let the verb or adverb come first sometimes.

3- A resume does not an essay make. An essay is a cohesive piece that is organized to communicate an idea of yours. The admissions folks already have a copy of your resume. Do not simply talk about everything you've accomplished in your life since first grade and call it an essay.

4- Do not pick a gut-wrenching topic that you are not emotionally prepared to write about. If you have not completely come to terms with a particular issue in your life, it is going to resonate as emotional instability. We are all a little crazy and we all have burdens, but you do not need to share this with the admissions staff. Save that information for your confessional poetry and turn it into the literary magazine.

5- Be creative. Believe it or not, you can write a story (with you as the narrator) that has you experiencing all types of wonderful and fulfilling things - this story can be made up of events from your future - or it can depict how you would have liked to have spent the last three years of your life. While it's true that fact is often stranger than fiction, fiction may help you communicate your ideas more clearly.

6- Funny things engage readers too. Do not lose your sense of humor or yourself. If you write your essay with a thesaurus under your right hand, you may sound like a pretentious jerk or someone who wrote his essay with a thesaurus under his right hand.

7- Write with a personality and a voice. Allow the readers to see who you are. Some of this will be communicated via the details you select and the words you choose and the observations you make. Remember - you want them to know that out of 400,000 university applicants, you are unique.

8- BE HONEST. Do not try to be someone you are not.

9- If you are bored writing the piece, your reader will be bored reading it. Engage engage engage your reader - charm them - make them laugh. Tell them a story.

10- Just do it. The longer you wait, the bigger the burden becomes. Your essays have due dates depending on what college you are applying to, so find out what those dates are and pace yourself accordingly. Chain yourself to your desk for at least one hour at a time. It is okay to focus. Read what your friends have written, too. They will give you ideas.

11- Have several readers read your essay, including an english teacher or two. Spell check does not catch everything. Do not just have your mom and dad who love you read your essay, but ask someone who may actually have a more objective and unbiased opinion. Ask each reader if he got the point you were trying to make. Ask readers if they want to hear more or less of anything.


GENERAL RULES: Write in the active voice as opposed to the passive. Avoid excess prepositional phrases and instances of which and that. Remove forms of "be" and use action verbs. Avoid using too many flowery adjectives.